2025 is young, which means that my mind is still laser-focused on my goals for the new year. I make a big list of resolutions each New Year's Eve, and I look forward to the ritualas much as Christmas at this point.

Planning for the year to come is such an exciting opportunity. It lets you choose what kind of person you want to be 12 months in the future, and gives you the opportunity to make a plan for how you'll use the next 365 days to get there. But one of my 2025 resolutions has me looking back at the year before. We all end the year with unfinished business, and I'm finally taking a step to finish that business up.

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Old Games Are Still Good

This year, I made a list of all the games I started in 2024 that I don't want to let fall by the wayside in 2025. I've written before about how no games are harder to make time for than the ones that came out last year, and I still feel that way. They're not new enough that you'll get to be part of the conversation if you play them but they're also not old enough that you're checking a classic off your list. They're like Christmas candy on December 26th. It still tastes the same, but has been relegated to the clearance bin for some reason.

So, this year, my goal is to finish these 2024 games:

  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Star Wars Outlaws
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio
  • Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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Along with these older games I started last year, but haven't finished:

  • Maquette
  • Uncharted 3
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
  • Tyranny
  • Judgment
  • The Case of the Golden Idol
  • Bloodborne

Wrapping Up Unfinished Business In 2025

Two weeks into the year, I've finished Maquette and Uncharted 3. The rest will be bigger time commitments. In past years, I’ve set a goal to beat one really tough game (Bloodborne) or a full series (Fallout, Metal Gear Solid) and have consistently fallen short. Writing about games for a living means playing what people want to read about and, since most people aren’t talking about Fallout 2 right now, it’s hard to justify devoting a lot of time to it. It’s easy to only focus on big new things at the expense of the breadth of experiences that make the medium so richly interesting.

By attempting to finish games I’ve already started, though, I’m meeting myself halfway. Instead of just working my way through an entire new series or starting a tough game from scratch, I’m going back to games I have progress in and putting them over the finish line. Getting from the middle of Bloodborne to the end will (hopefully) be easier than playing the entire game from the beginning. And when I finish gimmes like Uncharted 3, I get to feel like I accomplished something.

The line separating one year from another is arbitrary. I still use it to make goals, because I find a helpful opportunity to recenter and get my eyes back on the prize. Though it's useful, it doesn't need to be ironclad; it shouldn't prevent me from finishing experiences I still want to see through to the end. And if I don't finish them all this year, hey, there's always 2026.

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